IN MID-JUNE, I was traveling with my partner through Northern California and into the Pacific Northwest to attend a climate justice conference, a heat wave chasing after us. Mere hours into the trip, several improperly torqued lug nuts flew from the front left wheel of our van, bringing it to a screeching halt on the I-5 near Redding, California.

The tow truck driver who arrived looked frazzled. “I’m on hour 18 of work today,” he said. “In these temperatures, more tires blow, or people’s engines can’t handle the heat. We’re slammed.” He wore thick long sleeves to protect himself from burns when he had to lie on the hot concrete, he said. “But then I just sweat like crazy.”

At the dealership, we learned that the shop was so overrun with breakdowns from the heat that it could take days to look at our vehicle. Stranded, we got a room at a hotel, only to find housekeeping staff there overwhelmed. Locals without air conditioning at home had come for a reprieve using the hotel’s AC and pool.

More workers across a wide range of sectors now face the new “normal” of laboring through extreme heat. Heat impacts outdoors laborers most. Farmworkers are 35 times more at risk of death from extreme heat than workers in other industries. Construction workers are 13 times more at risk of heat-related death. But heat has ripple effects throughout all sectors. In fact, 35 percent of all heat-related worker deaths happen indoors. Wildfire smoke, and navigating difficult choices while working in evacuation zones, pose additional risks and challenges to workers as the planet warms.

Massive transitions in both our climate and economy are upon us. That much is inevitable. Justice is not.

When I first started reporting on workers and wildfire smoke six years ago, deadly summer wildfires were an anomaly, not the norm, and the general public was just learning what an Air Quality Index (AQI) number was. Today, we understand that heat and smoke will be a fixture in our lives in many parts of the world for generations to come.

Massive transitions in both our climate and economy are upon us. That much is inevitable. Justice is not. As just one example, a study by the Union of Concerned Scientists found that outdoor workers could lose up to $55.4 billion dollars by mid-century due to lost work days from extreme heat alone. Workers, especially low-income workers and workers of color, often live in areas with poor air quality, higher pollution, and more environmental hazards. They often also have the least financial resources to protect themselves — for example, little access to health care, sick days, homes or workplaces with air conditioning or air filtration, or personal transportation.

Many of these workers feel abandoned by the government agencies charged with protecting them. For instance, while California was the first state to implement outdoor heat standards in 2006, the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health only managed to establish workplace heat protections for indoor workers last month, after a five year delay in issuing the rules. The new rules exclude California Department of Corrections facilities, failing to protect California’s carceral and incarcerated workers, among other shortcomings. And yet, the national landscape is so bleak, that California leads the country when it comes to such protections.

It need not be this way. Workers, unions, other worker-led organizations, and allied labor groups have the wisdom and solutions to help us transition from an economy based on extraction and exploitation to one grounded in ecological restoration, worker rights, and collective care.

For instance, the Labor Occupational Health Program at the University of California, Berkeley offers workshops on heat-illness prevention for worker organizations. The labor rights nonprofit Work Safe is advocating for stronger indoor and outdoor worker protections from heat and wildfire smoke, and many individual unions are educating their members and engaging in policy advocacy.

Moving beyond heat standards, California Labor for Climate Jobs — a coalition of public sector workers, teachers, domestic workers, janitors, farmworkers, healthcare workers, and oil and gas workers — is “fighting for a worker-led transition to a just and climate-safe economy.” Among the policies they are pursuing are climate hazard protections for workers in dangerous conditions, safety nets for workers and communities impacted by climate change, good jobs in the low-carbon economy, and climate-adaptive services and infrastructure for all. Because, as Sonoma County-based farmworker Anabel Garcia Correa points out below, what workers need most is the ability to collectively govern their work and to decide for themselves when conditions are becoming unsafe, without reprisal or economic repercussions.

Here, five California-based workers from different industries share how they have navigated heat and smoke, and how they’re pushing for change as the climate crisis elevates on-the-job risks.

The Farmworker

Anabel Garcia Correa is one of the many farmworkers who has harvested grapes for Sonoma County’s wealthy vineyard owners in recent years. In 2017, even as wildfires barreled down on all sides, she was escorted through evacuation zones as an “essential worker” to pick grapes in choking smoke. While California has some rules meant to protect workers from poor air quality — including providing notice of the risk in their native language and offering protective equipment — in practice, farmworkers say these requirements are often ignored.

Garcia is a member of North Bay Jobs with Justice (JWJ) where she and her fellow farmworkers have been campaigning for disaster pay (compensation for work lost due to environmental disasters) and hazard pay (a pay increase for working in unhealthy conditions) for farmworkers. As a result of their organizing, and in what is believed to be the first county-level program of its kind, last year the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors established a $3 million disaster fund. Additionally, Garcia is part of JWJ’s Trabajadores de la Tierra, a collectively-governed land-restoration work crew through which she and her coworkers clear brush from wildfire-prone lands.

“I was working in the fields in 2017 when all the big fires happened. We kept harvesting through the smoke and very near to the fires because we needed the pay for our food and housing. The smoke really irritated our throats and eyes. We couldn’t see. We didn’t get any disaster pay or hazard pay. That’s what we, Jobs with Justice, are now fighting for here in Sonoma County where it’s all agricultural work — strawberries, lettuce, cherries, and, of course, grapes.

We often work in the fields in high temperatures. I remember working during the pandemic in 95-to-100-degree temperatures, and they were spraying [chemicals] onto the crops near us. One of my co-workers had fainted and was vomiting. The company didn’t call the ambulance. It was at that moment that I learned that we as workers have to take care of each other. It is not fair that the rich continue to abuse workers — not caring if they become dehydrated, faint, vomit, or even die from the heat. It is important that we receive pay even if we have to pause or stop because of the heat, because otherwise workers don’t feel like they can stop working because they can’t afford to lose those wages or else they will fall behind on rent, food, phone, electricity, or insurance bills. So, we are asking that even if people have to stop because of the heat that they receive their full check.

Now there is a group of us who used to be farmworkers but who are now doing work on the land to help prevent wildfires. Unlike in the vineyards where we had bosses, here we workers decide when and how we work. We take 15-minute breaks to hydrate, rest in the shade, and make sure our bodies are healthy. But the big change is that we get paid if we stop — whether it’s 90, 92, 95 degrees. All workers deserve these protections.”

The Teacher

Cory Jong is an eighth-grade Ethnic Studies teacher at Urban Promise Academy in Oakland, California, and the founding teacher behind Warriors for Justice, the school’s student-led intersectional climate justice organization. They were one of the founding adult co-conspirators behind the climate justice organization Youth vs. Apocalypse, on whose board they currently serve. Jong is a member of their union, the Oakland Education Association (OEA), a delegate to the California Teachers Association, and supports CA Senate Bill 1182, the Climate Resilient Schools Act, which seeks to improve school infrastructure by installing solar panels, updating HVAC systems, electrifying bus fleets, and creating green spaces on campuses.

“My classroom doesn’t have air conditioning. I keep the blinds closed throughout the day to try to keep the sun from heating up the room, but there’s only so much you can do. As the day progresses, it gets hotter and hotter, and harder to concentrate. I can see the impact on my students’ irritability and behavior too. Sometimes I’ll open every door to my classroom in an attempt to get ventilation and air circulation, but then students become distracted by recess or anything happening outside the classroom. My classroom is next to the playground, which is black asphalt and astroturf. When it’s hot out, the astroturf particulate matter gets kicked up more and they bring it into the classroom on their clothes.

And now we have smoke days, which we never had when I was growing up, or even when my students were younger. On those days, I’m never sure if it’s safer for students to be at school or at home. At home, many students live in older buildings without air conditioning, double-paned windows, or proper ventilation to protect them from heat or poor air quality. But walking to school through the heat and smoky air is dangerous too, especially here in the Fruitvale, where we get pollution from the 580 and 880 freeways. My students have studied our neighborhood, including infrared mapping that helps us understand that we are living in an urban heat island with few trees for shade or to detoxify the air. After a smoke day, we often see an increase in absences — the smoke weakens people’s immune systems, leading to more illnesses.

Because of all this, my students are really active on climate justice. They’re doing participatory action research on urban heat islands, campaigning before the Bay Area Air Quality Management District and the California Air Resource Board (CARB), marching for climate justice, making global connections in solidarity with Palestine, the Congo, and Sudan, testifying at Oakland City Council to oppose the export of coal through the Port of Oakland and proposed airport expansion, lobbying the California Teachers Association and statewide to divest teacher and public worker pensions from fossil fuel investments, and getting involved in neighborhood community gardens.”

The Childcare Provider

Allison Davis is a licensed family childcare provider living and working in Fairfield, California. On any given day she has a dozen or more children in her care, ranging in age from 3 to 13 years old. Davis has seen fires on the hill near her home from her window while caring for children. She says higher electric bills to keep the air conditioner running during heat waves have eaten into her take-home pay, as have increased home insurance rates following decisions by several insurance companies to pull out of California due to the rising wildfire risk. She is a member of United Domestic Workers.

“It’s hot. Last week, it was 110 degrees in Fairfield. The [electric] grid got overloaded, so there was a power outage. This time I was on vacation, so it didn’t impact me as much, but during the last power outage we were without power for several days, and it was summer break, so I had children with me all day. I’ve also been in situations where we’re under an evacuation watch because of wildfires. The sky got dark, it looked like it was raining, but it was actually ash falling from the sky, and the children were getting nervous. Everyone I knew was preparing to leave, but I can’t just pack up and go because I’m caring for other people’s children who work an hour away. I’m obviously not going to abandon these children, but it’s hard because I also need to care for my own family in emergencies.

The state regulatory agency, Community Care Licensing, tells childcare centers to close in those circumstances because it’s not safe for children or providers, but they don’t give any direction to those of us who provide childcare in our homes. I feel the pressure to stay open because otherwise clients will seek out other providers. My expenses have gone up, but my pay hasn’t, so I have less expendable income. Childcare is so critical, but we need regulations and safety standards for these situations so that we can stay safe while caring for others.”

The Airport Worker

Jovan Houston has held a number of positions at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) for the last 15 years. After six months of working inside an airport warehouse where she was exposed daily to air pollutants and chemical fumes from planes on the nearby runway, she was diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). She also worked on the runway itself, moving luggage to planes in the hot sun. Houston and her union, SEIU United Service Workers West (USWW), have been organizing for worker environmental health and safety protections on the job.

“Working in the heat is excruciating — breathing in dust and fumes from the planes and then adding heat on top of that means instant migraines. Sometimes it’ll be over 100 degrees out and we’ll have to push these carts with heavy luggage 30 to 40 yards back and forth. There is little shade for much of the day. There’s no water fountain out there. If you don’t bring your own water, you’re screwed. When you run out of water, you have to get someone to relieve you while you go get water, but that’s not always possible.

I’m always exhausted, and even when I go home I am still breathing in jet fuel because I live in the flight path and am still hot because I can’t afford air conditioning. And it’s not just me. Several months ago, one of my co-workers fell out on the ramp. He had a heat stroke, fell and hit his head really bad, and has not returned to work. When there’s been wildfire smoke, I’ve had to call in sick because it’s too much for me. That’s a tough decision though because I need to save those days to care for my son, Tyler, who has asthma and is often out sick.”

The Transit Worker

Nicole Christian is a transit worker with the Metropolitan Transit Agency (MTA) in San Francisco, where she has worked for over a decade. Christian is also the Chair of the Social and Economic Justice Committee of her union, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1021. Through her union, Christian has been tracking the ways in which her fellow transit workers are experiencing increased heat, wildfire smoke, and exposure to pollution. Together with other union members, she has been organizing for advances in environmental and climate justice that put workers at the center of a just transition. She sees funding for safe, affordable, and accessible public transportation as a key element of that future.

“For some of our operators, car cleaners, and crossing guards — who keep the city moving — the heat and wildfire smoke can be really hard on them, especially on top of the chemicals they’re exposed to in their everyday jobs. The crossing guards tend to be older, work on hot pavement, and may already have respiratory issues that are exacerbated by smoke from the wildfires. On [smoky] days, it’s hard for them to call in sick because if there’s no one to replace them it puts our kids at risk. For our operators and maintenance workers, they are already exposed to the exhaust from everyday traffic, but then you have these days with wildfire smoke when the skies turn orange and the air quality gets so bad that even with an N95 mask, they can’t do their job because their lungs can’t get enough air. They simply can’t breathe. It becomes respiratory failure. Our car cleaners, who steam-clean the buses, wear full hazmat protection, so on ‘spare the air’ days when there’s pollen, smoke from wildfires, or anything that is abnormal for our breathing, they are at higher risk from the heat.”

These interviews have been edited for clarity.